This week, I’m talking about being debt free in retirement - why this is so important and how to take steps now to become debt free by retirement. 

Today, I’m talking about getting started on eradicating debt from your life. 

One of my all-time favorite quotes is from Mark Twain. He said: “The secret to getting ahead is getting started”. What I love so much about this quote is it’s simple truth. As humans, we are naturally opposed to change. Especially if that change is difficult - like making sacrifices to eradicate debt from your life. But Twain was right - the secret IS just getting started. 

So how do you get started on eradicating debt from your life? 

The answer is surprisingly simple. 

The first step in getting started is to take inventory. And this shouldn’t take you too long, so you don’t have an excuse not to do it. In fact, if you listened to Monday’s episode, I already mentioned this was the essential first step, so hopefully you’ve already done this. But let me reiterate how to take inventory of your debt:

Here’s how you take inventory: Get out a sheet of paper and create 4 columns: 

• First column - Name of the debt. Is this a Macy’s credit card, a car loan, your mortgage? Whatever it is, list all your debts by name. 
• Second column - write the current balance that you owe
• 3rd column - write down the number of years left on the loan
• Last column - write down the current interest rate. Is it 2%, 12% or 22%? Whatever it is, write it down. 

All done! See, that wasn’t so hard, now was it? Once you take an inventory of your debt you can put a realistic plan in place to knock out those debts and I’ll talk more about that tomorrow. 

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening. My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the One Minute Retirement Tip. 

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